Posts Tagged ‘Rey Ordonez’

Last week, Sandy Alderson commented that “stolen bases are a footnote”. He’s right, though as James Kannengeiser of Amazin Avenue noted “the Mets have been an elite base stealing machine over the last few seasons.” Actually, Kannengeiser’s analysis thoroughly covers the issue (that’s not the first time I’ve said that about his work) and I pretty much agree with every word of it, especially his conclusion.

But it got me thinking about which Mets players were the most efficient base stealers. So, I went over to Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index tool to take a deeper dive. Here’s a few highlights of what I found:

The player with the best “non-perfect” stolen base success rate: Chico Walker, who went 21-22 in 222 games over the 1992-93 seasons. I liked Chico, because his name often reminded me of the immortal Chico Escuela.

Shawn Green is the only other Met to exceed a 90% success rate, going 11-12 in 164 games over the 2006-07 seasons. He also owns a very, very expensive house.

The current team has the three most successful runners in franchise history, plus Castillo (.809) and Angel Pagan (55-71, .775).

That final point brings me back to Kannengeiser’s post. I share his confidence in Alderson & Co., but I worry just a bit that this edge will be blunted. Time will tell, but it will most definitely be an interesting sub-plot to follow this season.

Like many of my best-intentioned plans, my countdown to Spring Training quickly fizzled. Not only is Amazin’ Avenue doing it better (and with pictures!), it turns out that I couldn’t even get the actual number of days right! That was particularly humbling. It turns out that pitchers and catchers are due to report two whole days earlier than I thought. So, there goes that idea.

That being said, I’d written up a couple of entries in advance, so I’m going to trot them out over the next few days. Here is what would have been my day twenty entry: Kurt Abbott.

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Drafted by the Oakland A’s on my twelfth birthday, the former 15th round pick joined the Mets as a free agent on January 26, 2000. Abbott would appear in 79 games for the Mets that year, hitting .217/.283/.389 in 173 plate appearances. His -0.5 rWAR (B-R.com) tied him with Matt Franco and Rickey Henderson for worst on the team, non-Rey Ordonez division (to be fair, Ordonez was lost for the season after only 29 games). So, he’s got that going for him.

It was in that year’s World Series that I (drunkenly) gave him the nickname of the All-Powerful Kurt Abbott. I was watching game one at my Yankee-fan friend’s house, surrounded by his Yankee-fan family and Yankee-fan friends, the lone Mets fan in the room. The Yankees had taken a 2-0 lead on a David Justice double in the bottom of the sixth, but the Mets rallied to take a 3-2 lead in the seventh (shockingly, Bubba Trammell was prominently involved). The Yankees sent Mariano Rivera to the mound in the top of the ninth to hold the fort. He promptly retired Jay Payton, but plunked Todd Pratt.

With a man on first, one out, and Mike Bordick due to hit, Bobby Valentine tapped Kurt Abbott to pinch hit. I was not overwhelmed by optimism. In an effort to get ahead of (what I thought) was an inevitable double-play grounder, I said something like “the All-Powerful Kurt Abbott will save the day”. Abbott promptly lined a double to right field to advance Pratt to third. Neither Timo Perez nor Edgardo Alfonzo could capitalize on the opportunity and the Mets failed to score. The Yankees went on to win the game (and ultimately the World Series), but a nickname was born.

Fun Fact: Kurt Abbott is a cop in Florida. That’s him on the left, giving the hand to a perp he had just apprehended.

Makes Rey Ordonez look like Babe Ruth, no? And I guess we know at least part of the reason that Leo Durocher and Sparky Anderson got into managing. Anyway, I regard 1947 as the start of the modern era and only eight of the player-seasons on our list played in it, so let’s start with that date and see what the results are for the modern era:

For the record, Rey Ordonez’ 53 OPS+ in 1998 is 23rd on this list. Not the worst of all-time, but definitely not far from it. I always knew he struggled with the bat, but I had no idea that it was that bad.

Sometimes, researching a Frivolity can lead to interesting discoveries. Other times, not so much. That’s the case for today’s Frivolity: lowest OPS+ in a season during which the player qualified for a batting title. I’ll tell you right now: it’s not a shocker. In fact, the same two players have the five worst OPS+ seasons and seven of the top 10. That would be Doug Flynn and Rey Ordonez.

Hubie Brooks holding down the 10 spot surprised me, but it was no shock to see Flynn and Ordonez appear so often. Those are some shockingly low OPS+ though. It’s criminal that these guys got as many at bats as they did, regardless of how good they were defensively.